Kids walking dogs alone
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Anonymous
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I walk in my local park every morning. Since school let out there has been a flood of teens walking the family dog alone, I guess it's a summer chore? Parents, they are not good at it.
The thing I see most often is a smaller teen struggling to hang onto a relatively large dog (Aussie, Doodle, etc) who is lunging at other dogs. Your kid is scared; one boy this morning had tears. Thirteen year olds are not big enough to handle these dogs when they get going. The other common one is the bigger teen ignoring his dog on a long leash. He is taking up the whole path, tangling runners, stressing the kids with reactive dogs. Share the park, please. |
Anonymous
| We have this in our neighborhood too. A young teen/tween walks the family golden retriever with a retractable leash. I’ve yet to see her not drop the leash and have the dog run off and engage in a game of chase before she can reclaim the leash. I fear for that dog every time she walks it. Neighbors have expressed concern to the parents but nothing changes. |
Anonymous
| I see adults who can't manage their dogs, drop the leash, allow them to leap on passing people, its a Bethesda thing. |
Anonymous
| This is a very reasonable chore for a teen or tween. Maybe they're not good at it, but they'll get better. |
Anonymous
| For trips beyond our yaard, I just took the leash away from my 10 year old as our lab puppy's joie de vire has now eclipsed my kid's stength. |
Anonymous
There should be an adult supervising if the child cannot fully control the dog. |
Anonymous
| Retractable leashes should be banned. |
Anonymous
They are a beacon of idiocy. |
Anonymous
I have a very petite neighbor in her 70s who lives with her adult daughter’s family. Since grandma is retired, she’s the family dog walker. Their dog is young and energetic, has no leash manners, and pulls grandma down the sidewalk on a retractable leash. When the dog sees another dog, she suddenly darts toward it, causing grandma to lose control of the leash. I’ve seen the dog race across the street without hesitation and run right up to leashed dogs and get in their faces. I’m very concerned that the dog will get hit by a car or bitten by another dog or grandma will take a nasty fall. I told her it would be much safer to get rid of the retractable leash and use a 6 ft non retractable one, but honestly, I don’t think she should even be walking this particular dog at her age. |
Anonymous
| Agreed, OP. I have little dogs and walking “his” dog is 12 year old DS’s chore, but I still always always go with him. I don’t want him making decisions if an off leash dog approaches, the dog is spooked and reacts, etc. A big dog? Hell no. |
Anonymous
+1 Sheesh is this our level of coddling kids now? That teenagers can’t walk dogs? If you’ve got a strong, aggressive dog, okay, but just a clueless kid getting tangled with the occasional runner? Talk about low stakes! This kind of attitude is why so many college kids have anxiety now. They aren’t given any responsibilities or space to grow and learn in the real world. The crying 13 year old will learn and do better, and then will be better prepared when actually problems crop up in his life. |
Anonymous
| I'm seen that too. We don't ask our 13 year old to take any responsibility with the dog as it was our choice to get it. They offer and do help but their choice. |
Anonymous
You can give kids responsibilities but make sure they can handle it. I've seen kids walking dogs and they clearly cannot handle it nor want to. |
Anonymous
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Our kids have been taking turns walking the dog since the youngest was about 8. He's a pretty well trained, calm dog. I see a fair number of teens walking dogs in our neighborhood, including doodles, and they mostly are very responsible and the dogs are well trained on the leash. I can only think of one exception, and those teens have little yappy dogs that are really vicious and not at all trained--they go insane whenever another dog walks by, and probably should just be indoor dogs.
The problem dog walkers are almost always men in their 50s-60s, who let the dogs run off leash and poop without picking it up. If you say something to them, they insist their dog is well trained, and say that they have a shoulder problem or something like that. I agree with PPs that retractable leashes are absolutely awful and should be banned. I tell everyone that I see using one that they are very dangerous. For OP, if you know the family, I might say something to the parent. I would want to know if my kids were not fulfilling their responsibilities in a reasonable way. |
Anonymous
DP. The way kids learn how to handle problems is to encounter them and then handle them. It's good for kids to struggle walking the dog. They'll figure out how to do it better. If they don't struggle because they aren't allowed to walk the dog, they didn't learn anything. |